Incredible and cheeky, but both were Maradona specials

Later tonight, Maradona’s successors play Holland to decide who will head Group C, and no doubt Diego himself will be in the stands, as he has been through this tournament. Maybe he’ll even pause to remember the two goals he scored against England.

The first was the controversial “Hand of God” goal; in the 51st minute, the score 0-0, the diminutive Maradona and the giant Peter Shilton went up together to meet Valdano’s cross. There was no way Shilton could have been outjumped but the ball entered the net and the referee, Ali Bennaceur, signaled the goal.

“Everyone saw it but the referee”, says veteran journalist Keir Radnedge, who was present at the match and remembers being left goggle-eyed at the decision. “Had Maradona paused, maybe the referee would have sensed that something was wrong but he didn’t, he turned away and celebrated. It was cheeky, and it was typical of the man.

“I couldn’t believe it”, says Ricardo Alfieri, an Argentinian photographer who was stationed behind that goalline. “I thought the referee would blow for a foul but he signaled a goal. I couldn’t understand it.”

Maradona’s own reaction at the time was to call it the “Hand of God”. Years later, though, he spilled the beans in his autobiography El Diego : “At that time I called it lost nano dedios (the Hand of God). Bollocks was it the hand of God, it was the hand of Diego! And it felt a bit like pickpocketing the English…

“I was a bit stupid, because I was celebrating with my left fist outstretched and watching what the linesmen were up to out of the corner of my eye. The referee could have cottoned on to that and suspected something was up. Luckily, he didn’t even notice. By now, all the English were protesting and Valdano was giving me the shhh! with a finger over his lips.”

Three minutes later came the double-whammy and the goal that is unofficially known as the greatest of all time. The image remains in the mind of everyone who saw it, live or on TV: Maradona slaloming his way through the English defence, leaving a trail of wrong-footed defenders in his wake, before rounding Shilton and slotting the ball home.

“That was an incredible goal”, Maradona later wrote. “I wanted to put the whole sequence of that goal in stills, blown up really big, above the headboard of my bed. I’d add a pciture of Dalmita (his daughter) and below I’d add an inscription which read: My life’s best. Nothing more.”

“You had to be there to believe it “, recalls Radnedge. “Unfortunately, the first, controversial, goal seems to have eclipsed his next two, the dribble down the right to beat the entire England defence and a similar one against Belgium, this time coming from the left.”

Both goals are still remembered — equally fondly — in Argentina. “We are proud of it”, says journalist Carlos Barraza. “To us, that day is a symbol. It also showed that we could beat the English both ways because if they complain about one goal we beat them with the other.”

“It was a special year for us because it was the last time we won the World Cup”, says Hector, a fan from Rosario, who says his father was at the Azteca in 1986. “Beating the English made it more special. Nobody thinks it was cheating. The referee was there, he gave the goal. How can you say it was cheating?”

There was, of course, a great deal of history preceding the match. Part of it was to do with football — 20 years before that day, the English had called the hard-tackling Argentina team “animals” after beating them in a bruising World Cup match.

But the recent history was political. The Falklands War of 1982 was still fresh in the minds of both sides, but especially Argentina’s.

Maradona again: “Of course, before the match, we said that football had nothing to do with the Malvinas War, but we knew a lot of Argentinian kids had died there, shot down like little birds. This was revenge. It was like recovering a little bit of the Malvinas.” “In a way, we blamed the English players for everything that happened, for all the suffering of the Argentine people. I know it seems like madness and a nonsense now but truthfully at that time that was what we felt. It was stronger than us: we were defending our flag, the dead kids, the survivors.”

So how does today’s team compare with that side? “That was a great team”, says Radnedge, “and it wasn’t just about Maradona — though he has helped perpetuate that myth. You had Valdano, Burruchaga, two excellent wing-backs in Giusti and Olarticoechea. And you had a manager in Carlos Bilardo who had the courage to play 3-5-2 and utilize his talents.”

The current team? “They can play attractive football, as anyone who saw the goal against Serbia will testify: 58 seconds, 55 passes. Maradona’s two goals were brilliant individualism, this is football at its best, with teamwork an integral part. It’s too early to judge this team; They won the World Cup in 1986, the’ve won two matches here.”